We need regulations

Big business - we need it in this day and age, but it needs to be well regulated for the well-being of all of us.
From Crooks and Liars
[click on the link to read more]

Big business drug companies holding our lives hostage

Oncologists Call Out Big Pharma For High Chemo Prices

Novartis was just denied a patent for Gleevec, a cancer drug, in India. This wasn't because they doubt the efficacy of the drug. It was to protect their right to manufacture generic versions.

    India's Supreme Court has rejected a bid from Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis AG to patent an updated version of its cancer drug Gleevec (known as Glivec in Europe).

    Patents allow companies to block competitors from making and selling the same product. The ruling means that Novartis can't stop drug makers in India from manufacturing generic versions of Gleevec, which cost much less than the original.

This is not an unusual occurrence these days. Worldwide, oncologists and medical professionals are pressuring Big Pharma to drop their prices on cancer treatment drugs.

    "Advocating for lower drug prices is a necessity to save the lives of patients who cannot afford them," the physicians write in Blood, the journal of the American Society of Hematology. Since many specialize in chronic myeloid leukemia, which is a deadly blood cancer, they cited Gleevec, a best-selling medication marketed by Novartis.

Rand Paul says something that's accurate.

From The Political Carnival

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) told Fox News that President Obama and former President George W. Bush could have "conceivably been put in jail" for using drugs.

    Said Paul: "Look, the last two presidents could have conceivably been put in jail for their drug use and I really think - look what would've happened, it would've ruined their lives. They got lucky. But a lot of poor kids, particularly in the inner city, don't get lucky and they don't have good attorneys and they go to jail for some of these things and I think it's a big mistake."

    The response prompted host Chris Wallace to note, "Actually, I think it would be the last three presidents, but who's counting?"

Our drug laws are nonsensical

The United States jails too many people.

Judge Napolitano: The War on Drugs - 30 years in the making, a trillion dollars in expenditures, thousands of deaths, hundreds and thousands incarcerated. Yet, Drugs are cheaper and more prevalent than they were 30 years ago.

he war on drugs

Marijuana - A History In America

Marijuana is a fairly mild drug that was once legal in the US and became illegal for mostly economic reasons. Today possession of the drug is a crime and causes the incarceration of tens-of-thousands of our fellow citizens. A gross waste of our taxpayer money, IMNSHO.

It's Time To End "The War On Drugs."

Ever since I was a young man in college, I have felt that there was a much better way to deal with the use of illegal (harmful) drugs in this nation. We should make them legal, allow them to be sold in controlled stores (like liquor stores in many states), tax the proceeds, and use the proceeds for drug education and treatment programs. But the old drug laws still exist and they still wreak havoc on the lives of far too many Americans.

Some will argue that if we allow the drugs to be sold legally, even to those only of a certain age (18? 21?) the drugs will still wind up in the hands of children. But I ask - and the drugs aren't in the high schools and middle schools now? Yeah, right. The war on drugs is working so well (he said derisively).

Here's a great 6 minute video on the subject.

Did You Know - Drug Busts

One of my biggest pet peeves with our governmental programs is our war on drugs. Not only does it waste buckets of money by the hour chasing drug users, but it winds up costing us in lives wasted (young, non-violent users wind up languishing in prisons) and in huge prison costs. Haven't I read recently that the US has a higher percentage of its citizens in jail than almost any of the other modern nations?

Former narcotics officer Barry Cooper says he feels guilty for making over 800 drug arrests in his career: "The war on drugs is an utterly losing proposition," he tells Radar. "We caused more harm breaking up families to put non-violent drug offenders in jail than the drugs ever did. And for what? To eradicate 1/10th of a percent of drugs on the street."

Now he has made an instructional video called Never Get Busted Again. Radar Online has printed some of Cooper's tips.

From Boing Boing.

Did You Know - No Drug Negotiations

I guess it's all in the perspective - do we allow big business to set the rules of governance because we can't survive without them? Or do we do everything we can to protect the average folks who are powerless against the wealth and control of big business? The major confrontation between Democrats and Republicans comes down to this argument. Forget "big government" and "higher taxes" - the real difference is over who are the primary recipients of the governments largesse.

The following is from Free Internet Press - click here to view the source...

A pillar of the Democratic political program tumbled today when Republicans in the Senate blocked a proposal to allow Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices for millions of older Americans, a practice now forbidden by law.

Democrats could not muster the 60 votes needed to take up the legislation in the face of staunch opposition from Republicans, who said that private insurers and their agents, known as pharmacy benefit managers, were already negotiating large discounts for Medicare beneficiaries.

Gift From the Middle East

I'm sure this "water pipe" (aka - bong) was just a gift from Middle Eastern Potentate. How ungrateful would the President have appeared if he had not taken a drag (toke)?

Canadian Drugs To Be Allowed

From the Toronto Star - read more here...

Canadian online pharmacies, 1. Big Pharma, 0. As of today, U.S. border officials will stop seizing prescription-drug packages ordered by Americans from Canadian online pharmacies, reversing a practice adopted only 11 months ago. The about-face results from pressure on members of Congress from tens of thousands of U.S. seniors deprived of drugs available from Canadian suppliers at discounts of as much as 40 per cent to the price at the local Walgreen's. Big Pharma is enraged, of course: